The Leader the World Needs

By Chinedu Ezeocha for Ezeocha PostOriginally Published on Tuesday June 17, 2014 at 10:10 AM CT

The jury have decided and there is now a general agreement that President Obama have diminished America’s power and global influence through his policies. Consequent of his lax foreign policies, oppressors like President Assad of Syria got away with killing thousands of Syrians with chemical weapons even when President Obama told the world Assad will face serious consequences if he did so. Assad called him bluff and did exactly that and Obama didn’t come up with any punishment. That is unpresidential.

On Iran’s nuclear weapon’s program, the President is kowtowing to the dictates of the ayotallahs, trotting along with them around the world on a globally acknowledged sham and fruitless negotiations, and seriously resisting every attempt by Congress, even calls from lawmakers in his own party, for a more biting economic sanctions that can force Iran’s hand and make them reconsider their nuclear weapon’s ambition. That also is a flat out error in judgment as if someone didn’t learn anything from Chamberlain. Appeasement makes the aggressor more aggressive. You do not kowtow to Iran. You force their hand.

America is supposed to provide the world with strong leadership but Barack Obama seem not to understand that. He will be happy following Vladimir Putin’s lead. He will be happy following Ali Hosseini Khamenei’s lead. But he won’t provide any.

The world is becoming more dangerous as it usually does whenever America takes the back seat in global leadership. And it reminded me of the state of affairs in the world by the end of the 20th century and the first year in the 21st century when another lawyer-president from the Democratic Party was calling the shots. During this Bill Clinton era, Osama bin Laden was known to have been responsible for the simultaneous bombing in 1998 of U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts were known then and the CIA wanted to take him out but the Commander in-Chief couldn’t give the go. Two years later, October 12, 2000 and we witnessed another terrorist attack, this time the bombing of the USS Cole in the Gulf of Aden by the same Osama bin Laden group. And once again we heard empty rhetoric from the Commander-in-Chief.

It is failure in intelligence given rise to by failure in leadership that allowed monumental attacks in a space of two years on U.S. facilities abroad by the same terrorist group. What is more striking though is that while Osama bin Laden and his terrorist group were given free hand to hit America at their whim abroad, they were also allowed free pass to plan and execute 9/11, the mother of all terror attack in our backyard under our very noses under the same Democratic Party presidency. And that is telling.

Democrats have always been known to be weak Commander-in-Chiefs, for projecting a weak America, and for allowing terror to breed under their watchful eyes under the guise of ‘we cannot solve all world’s problem.’ But what they seem to forget is that everybody hates the big guy, the successful guy, the Miami Heat of global politics. And when people hate you, they wish you ill and for those who has the will and capacity to bring ill to you, they stop at nothing in doing so. America is the Miami Heat of world politics and everybody want to see her fall. Some wish it to happen while the bad guys are working hard daily to bring it to pass. Therefore ignoring a problem does not wish the problem away. It only grows and postpone the problem for you to a time the cost of dealing with it will be greater. That is why Machiavelli recommended preemptive war rather than wait for a time when the war will cost more in resources. And that is why taking out Iran militarily right now is the best of the wisest course of action to take rather than wait for them to become another North Korea.

Back to Barack Obama. To be objective, where he has failed in foreign policy issues, he has succeeded on domestic policies. For one, he inherited a bottomed out economy from Republican George W. Bush. Which he has help rebuild. He fought for the Affordable Care Law, which although imperfect and rooted in a lie, is something that can help Americans more than it already has, if the opposition party can stop working to repeal it and start looking for ways to make it better.

Republicans on the other hand are traditionally foreign policy hawks. Whenever we have a Republican president, the world straightens itself out because the world recognizes by default that a gladiator has stepped into the arena.

But Republicans have not being good economists. Bill Clinton despite his foreign policy failings succeeded at passing a balanced budget and his predecessor George W. Bush inherited economic surplus from him. George Bush contrariwise left deficits for Obama. Senator John McCain, the Republican Party opponent to Barack Obama in the 2008 general election lost mostly because he had no prescription to solve the repression. Mitt Romney, a successful businessman was supposed to be a huge breakaway for Republicans on the economy, but a combination of his lack of charisma and his uptightness cost him an election he shouldn’t lose.

Now the world need a man or woman in the Oval Office who is ready and capable of providing the much-needed leadership. A man or woman who can pick that 3a.m. phone call and make the tough but right call. A man or woman who will stand on the Rose Garden and give the world his/her word and when the time comes to deliver on his or her word, does so. America also needs a president who can keep growing the economy to support its people and maintain an unrivalled military on earth.

In whom can America and the world find a combination of these traits?

Ronald Reagan was the last that Republicans had in terms of semblance to charisma, virile foreign policy, and robust economy. Democrats are who they are: charismatic presidents, economy gurus, but passive in foreign policy, which breeds terror. I am not so sure the world can afford another Democrat in the Oval Office. I suspect also that America too cannot afford to let go of the economic recovery. So we need in the Oval Office in January 20, 2017 a man or woman who is ready to make the tough but right call on Iran, someone who can inspire Americans to still believe, someone who can, not only continue the economic recovery, but grow the economy with much-needed professional jobs. America and the world deserves a leader in the real sense of the word. I am afraid none of the frontrunners so far fit the description.